The present invention generally relates to liquid heating apparatus and, in representatively illustrated embodiments thereof, more particularly provides water heaters that are able to selectively utilize either a fuel burner structure or rejected air conditioning circuit heat to heat water stored in a tank portion of the water heater.
In the past, various proposals have been made to utilize heat rejected from an air conditioning refrigerant circuit to heat water disposed in a storage vessel. Previously proposed systems for transferring rejected refrigerant circuit heat to stored water typically have associated therewith various well known problems, limitations and disadvantages which include requiring an undesirably large amount of installation space, being mechanically complex, and requiring relatively complicated control systems.
For these reasons it would be desirable to provide an improved system for transferring rejected refrigerant circuit heat to stored liquid which eliminated, or at least substantially reduced the above-mentioned problems, limitations and disadvantages associated with previously proposed refrigerant circuit heat transfer systems of the type generally described above. It would also be desirable to provide a refrigerant circuit-based water heater system that could utilize a selectively variable one of two separate fuels to carry out its water heating function.